: Before Altium was Altium, they were known for Protel. Circuit Maker 2000 was a beloved "entry-level" tool that bridged the gap between professional PCB design and classroom learning.
Good news: You don't need to risk your PC's health for that workflow. The spirit of Circuit Maker lives on.
Downloading 15 megabytes in 2002 was a commitment. It wasn't a background task; it was an event. The progress bar moved with the speed of a glacier. 10%. 12%. If someone picked up the phone in the hallway, the connection would die, and the partial download would be lost to the digital ether.
The problem was, Circuit Maker 2000 wasn't free. It was expensive commercial software, well out of a student's budget.
While Protel/Altium no longer sells or supports Circuit Maker 2000, it is not open-source. Downloading it for free technically falls into a grey area of abandonware. Altium is unlikely to sue you, but they won't help you either.
The year was 2002. The distinct hum of a CRT monitor filled the corner of the college dorm room, and the smell of soldering flux hung faintly in the air.
